The book "Man from the South and Other Stories” is written by the prominent British author of the 20th century Roald Dahl.The author writes his stories in different genres: drama ("An African Stroy”, "Pig”), humour ("The Vicar’s Pleasure”), war adventure ("Beware of the Dog”) and many others. Seven narratives in this book are mostly set in the British countryside in the middle of the 20th century.
This review is focused on one story named "The Vicar’s Pleasure”. It tells us about the vicar Mr. Boggis and three farmers. He is not a real vicar though but an old good-looking man who earns money buying and selling rare furniture. He always haggles over every single pound even if the thing is cheap enough already. He invents a lot of reasons to lower its price. The plot shows the real outcome of an excessive bargaining for a very valuable commode he found on a small farm.
Roald Dahl’s stories in this book (and many others I believe) teach that not everything is going to be as we expect, in other words, "man proposes, God disposes”. The book introduction says "Roald Dahl is the master of the unexpected”. However, I was able to guess the ending of some stories, not in full details of course, but the general idea. Despite this, I’d recommend to read the book because it is pretty interesting and insightful.
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